


Secrets Told

by Brinchestiel, mrshays



Series: Secrets Verse [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Healing, Healthy Coping Mechanisms, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, NPR, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Rehabilitation, Religion, Short & Sweet, making amends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-09 02:35:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17398391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brinchestiel/pseuds/Brinchestiel, https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrshays/pseuds/mrshays
Summary: Chuck lost Valerie after she sold the house in Madison. Will he ever find her again? This short story is set two years after the events of Brinchestiel’s In Secret Places.





	1. Wisdom

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Brinchestiel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brinchestiel/gifts).
  * Inspired by [In Secret Places](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16317941) by [Brinchestiel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brinchestiel/pseuds/Brinchestiel). 



> I wanted to take a moment to thank Brinchestiel for letting me use her original character, Valerie Krushnic. It has been a pleasure working with you on all the fics in this collection.

Valerie sat in her new favorite chair, watching the lavender in her flower boxes sway in the gently whispering breeze. She had the window open, and the crisp, white lace curtains she had hung were billowing in toward her in welcome. She finally had the strength to go through the suitcases from her time at Capitol Lakes. Her therapist said it would help her heal, to see directly, the progress she had made.

It had taken her several months to work up the courage, and unzipping the small carry-on, its teeth the only sound in the room, had been one of the hardest things she had ever done - but she did it.  Opening the bag brought her right back to the day she had packed it. Sitting in her cheery room, suitcases already packed, all that was left were the stacks of letters and journals she had amassed during her six-month stay.

Cheryl, a woman Valerie had forged a close friendship with, tapped lightly at the door and Valerie looked up from her packing. “Hey, just came to say see you soon,” she said with a smile as she stepped farther into the room to sit atop the bed, now stripped of its linens - they sat in a laundry bag in the far corner, awaiting pick up from one of the orderlies.

Valerie turned in her chair and returned the smile, “Thanks. I’m almost ready.”

“Your friend, Missouri’s coming to get you soon?” Cheryl looked like she might burst into tears. She had lost her son, too. He had been eight at the time of his death, and while Valerie at first resented Cheryl for all the extra time she had with her son, her heart soon thawed to the woman’s grief. Lucas had been her only son, and Valerie could not contemplate her life without Castiel and Gabriel. In the end, Valerie counted Cheryl as one of her closest friends.

“She is, any minute I think.”

Cheryl kept Valerie company as she finished packing everything away into her black carry-on bag. It had come with the two larger suitcases Missouri had dropped off the week before, as she prepared to leave the facility. Missouri had paid for her entire treatment, helped to sell her home in Madison.  Valerie had no idea how she would repay the woman, but supposed kindness and sobriety would be a good place to start.

 

She’d moved into the little apartment where she now sat, two years older, two years clean and lifted each letter from the carry-on bag she had not had the strength to unpack. She read each letter carefully, surprised when no tears came, only the smallest of smiles. Valerie was proud of the woman she now was. She was healthy, had a good relationship with her sons. Gabriel had forgiven her on her forty-sixth birthday. It was the best present, second only to Castiel, who had brought Dean along to celebrate. Seeing her baby blue happy and in love, so close to the age when she had fallen for Chuck. It warmed her heart.

Valerie sorted each of the letters into neat stacks, used up some of the yellow stationery she kept in her small writing desk, pushed under the bay window, to label each of the recipients. She bound each stack with string from the bouquets Missouri brought to her, made up of flowers from Karen’s garden. She kept all the wrapping, folded nicely, in the center drawer of her desk and was happy to have the occasion to use it.

Next, she read through all of her journals, reflecting on each word she had written. Those hardbound books were hers alone, and the first page of each one was dedicated to her mother. When she had completed her task, she shelved the journals on the small bookcase she kept in the living room alongside her thrillers.

Valerie turned the dial on her vintage radio set atop the bookcase; she loved _Fresh Air_. Terry Gross had such a unique perspective, always asked questions that made the people she interviewed stop and think, compliment her. It brought a smile to Valerie’s face. Reminded her of her time interviewing students for _The Badger_ _Herald_.

Valerie made her way back to the kitchen, paused to breathe in the scents of lavender and roses, and pulled open a cabinet to fix herself a cup of tea. Missouri had her hooked on the stuff, though she wasn’t complaining. Once steeped, Valerie added honey and cinnamon just as instructed, and sat back into her armchair to listen.

 _“Welcome back, I’m here with_ New York Times _bestselling author, Carver Edlund. Before the break, we were talking about your personal demons and how they influenced your characters.”_

_“That’s right, Terry.”_

_“I understand you’d completed your graduate degree in creative writing in Madison, but gave up the craft. Was there a pivot point, a watershed moment, that got you back into writing?”_

Valerie could not have told you how the rest of Chuck’s interview with her favorite radio personality went. Only that she abandoned her mug on the side table to boot up her laptop perched on her desk. She was impatient, waiting for the login screen to appear, hands hovered over the keys in pure anticipation. She Googled Carver Edlund - Chuck Shurley -  and found a veritable font of information on him. She hadn’t seen him in almost twenty years, but there was his face, staring back at her. Hair a little greyer though no less curly, deep lines etched into sides of his mouth and forehead. He was smiling: from a podium dressed up in honorary robes, in front of a writer’s guild charity gala backdrop, with Sera Siege in her office at Flying Wiccan Press in Chicago.

He looked good.

He had a Wikipedia page.

Valerie had a little coin that she kept in her pocket or purse at all times, with a Roman numeral two etched into it and a prayer on the back that she recited daily; she took it from her jeans and fingered the engraving, asked God for strength. She clicked the link, read his history, _their history_. Nothing too in-depth. The article said he was extremely private, but it did tell her where he’d been all those years. Madison to Chicago, homeless, clean again. Her heart gave a sharp tug at the mention of their sons, the inspiration for his writing.  

Valerie sat back, entirely overwhelmed as she tried to process this shift to her world, this upheaval. With sudden clarity, Valerie recalled the checks. They’d come every month, without fail, for years. Until she moved to Janesville. Valerie was working as a freelance editor. Some of her writing, while she was in rehab, had been published in a few local papers, and her passion for writing was suddenly a viable career. She had not realized the checks had been missing.

She clicked back to the photo of Chuck and Sera, opened the publisher’s webpage. He was there, too. Splashed across their highlights section, a new anthology: _Own all your favorite_ Supernatural _books in one collection_. Valerie clicked the link. Lost herself for the rest of the day, reading summaries and excerpts, ordering the books directly from the publisher.

The books came a week later, and Valerie devoured them all, read between editing jobs. She caught all of the nuances in his writing, learned his secrets, his grief. She recognized Michael in them, herself and Castiel and Gabriel. She understood him. Why he left and why he never came back. It was all there, on the printed page and Valerie suddenly longed for him. Wondered if he would ever want to see her again.

Valerie unpacked a lot of emotions over the next several months; took each book with her to her therapy sessions, flagged passages and dog-eared pages. She read aloud to her therapist, examined her feelings and made actual breakthroughs.  The last time she made that much progress, she was fresh out of rehab.


	2. Courage

Chuck looked up from his perch at the dining table, where he sat with his laptop and coffee mug, as the front door opened. Sera had all but given up moving him from the spot, after all, he had more focus days than frantic ones.

Sera filed in, looking apprehensive. She removed her heavy winter coat, scarf, gloves, and hat: her mid-winter ritual. Her short blonde hair came away in a static mess, haloed by the light in the hallway beyond the door. Chuck made a note of it on his page. Sera bent to unzip her boots, whitened at the toes with snowy remains. They left a grey puddle of snowmelt where she left them next to the shoe rack - they were too tall to fit on it.

Chuck waited for her to speak, Sera was typically mid-sentence whenever she opened the door, and her silence was unnerving, to say the least. When it became clear she wasn’t going to say anything, Chuck broke the tension.

“No hello?”

“Not yet,” she answered, clipped, breathless, stalling, “I don’t know how to tell you something I found out today, and it’s freaking me out a little.”

“Ok, yeah. Let me make some tea. Do you need the couch?”

They almost never sat together there, not even for movie nights. Chuck always took the armchair so Sera could lay out across the couch. His question was as clear an invitation for a heart-to-heart as any, they only sat side-by-side out at shows, or there, on the couch, when one of them needed to get big news off their chest.

“Yeah. Yes. That’s probably for the best,” she said and walked across the living room in a daze. Chuck made them each a cup of tea, let her stall a little longer. He was good at giving space and time when the situation called for it. He made his way to the couch and extended her favorite mug to her. Sera took it with a weak smile and Chuck’s anxiety took a slight uptick. They sat in silence for several long minutes, small eternities, until Sera closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

“I don’t know how it happened,” she started, stopped. Tried again, a new tactic, “Have you heard from Valerie lately?”

“No. I haven’t seen her since Christmas, what? Two years ago? Why? What’s wrong?” His voice was lilting up at the end of his sentences, a nervous tick that Sera recognized. She had no idea how Chuck was going to react, but she thought she should spare him the torment.

“Nothing’s wrong, it’s just...she bought the books,” she said it all in a rush into her mug, its contents still too hot to sip, it made her hands red. There was silence from the other end of the couch, and she was scared to look toward him. Chuck was whisper-quiet when he next spoke, disbelief coloring his words. Sera had felt the same, sitting in her office several hours before.

“She bought the books? How? How do you know that?”

Sera mustered the courage to look up and saw open confusion in Chuck’s wide, blue eyes. His mouth was ajar, and his mug was tilted forward at a dangerous angle, she reached between them to take it, set it aside on the end table, joined there by hers.

“I got an alert to my inbox. I set it up back when you asked me to send the checks. Accounting put together a report for me, just in case she tried to reach out to you. We lost her contact information a couple years ago, remember? We thought she sold the house?”

It was a painful memory for Chuck when the first check bounced. He had initially thought Valerie had died; she had looked so gaunt the last time he had seen her, but his heart had not pulled, and he had known she was strong and vibrant. Sera had talked him back, offered a more likely alternative: that she had moved on. Left their home. The thought that he no longer had a home to return to nearly broke him that day. Sonny had come over, brought dinner, kept them entertained with stories from his younger days, his own boys.

Chuck had asked Sera to keep them all, the checks, set them aside in case Valerie, his Valetchka, resurfaced. They lived now in his desk drawer, in his room, those forty-eight envelopes.

“Yeah,” he breathed out on a sigh, suddenly relieved that Valerie was still there, alive.

“Well, it pinged today. She placed an order for the anthology, had them sent to an address in Janesville.”

The name rang a bell, but Chuck couldn’t place it, too overwhelmed with this new information. He wondered why she had moved if the boys were with her if the boys were in _college_. Was she still with that man he’d seen at Christmas? Sera placed a gentle hand on his shoulder and they breathed together - both of them needing the calming reminder.

“What do you want me to do,” Sera asked after their breathing had returned to normal after her tea cooled. She reached back to the mugs, handed Chuck his, and took a sip from her own.

“I need time, I think. I’ll let you know.”

 

Chuck sat with the information for several months, debated the merits of reaching out, seeing her again. Valerie had never, ever made contact. He thought he had lost her for good after that Christmas, knew there was no way he could possibly make amends, repair the damage he had caused all of them. His only contact had been the checks, some small token of support for her. For his sons.

He thought that sending the checks, all at once, might overwhelm her, wondered if he should send them one by one, from the publisher, like he used to do. He wondered if she would know if she _had known_ they were from him.

Once the ice had melted, and the ground turned muddy, Sera took pity on Chuck. He found a bight pink Post-it note on the lid of his laptop one morning when he sat down to write.

_Here’s the address. Do the thing._ _-S_

Chuck took his coffee to his bedroom and gathered all of the envelopes from his desk. Near the back, were three letters written, but never sent, addressed to Valetchka and his sons. They were part of the steps, making lists, making amends. He remembered every word written within the blue envelopes, with their incorrect addresses.

He packed the letters and the checks into a small box at the post office.  He waited in line for his turn with Sera’s Post-it note stuck to his index finger. When the teller motioned to him, he handed over the sticky note and watched the box leave his hands, placed in a mail bin. No turning back, no second-guessing.

He drove home feeling lighter than he had in ages, called Sonny just to talk, and made dinner for Sera just in time for her return home, opening the door on a sentence fragment.


	3. Serenity

There was a small box wedged into her narrow mailbox when Valerie checked it. Odd, because no one ever sent her packages, except herself.  It was one of those white, flat-rate boxes. Completely generic. Except that when she reached for it, the circulars that had been tucked up under her arm, all fluttered to the tiled floor in the lobby of her building, when she turned the box over in her hands. 

She read the return address. She fell back several steps, nearly colliding with a potted plant the landlord had put in for ambiance. Her foot landed on the Biggerson’s ad and she nearly careened to the tiles to clutter up the entrance alongside her mail. She regained her footing, but not her breath, and found an empty bit of wall to lean against. 

Valerie clutched the box to her chest, felt a sharp tug at her heart, thought for sure she was going to have a heart attack but remembered the symptoms mimicked the flu, in women. She shook her head clear of the distraction and pulled the box away from her with trembling hands. 

The name, the address had not changed: Charles Shurely. Naperville, Illinois.  

Valerie gasped out a sob, suddenly aware her last breath had been sometime before she opened the mailbox. Eons ago, nineteen years ago, who could say? She clutched the box to herself again, kept her eyes on it as she gathered up her spilled mail, haphazard. She punched the elevator button with the hand holding the mail and stumbled back into her apartment, the circulars forgotten on the dining table. Valerie collapsed down into her chair with the box. Charles Shurley. Naperville, Illinois. 

She did the math in her head. The last time she’d been to Naperville was for a housewarming party for Sera. Their best woman. She had just gotten Flying Wiccan Press up and running and Valerie and Chuck had made the drive down for the occasion. It had taken less than two hours. 

Valerie slumped back into the cushions, let them hug her. The box, unopened in her lap, began to slide off, into the gap between her legs and the chair’s arm. Two hours. It had been nineteen years since she had seen Chuck, but he was  _ two hours _ away from her. Valerie recalled the Wikipedia article, the photos, all seemingly local. She dared not think at the time, how close he might be to her. She had this idea that he was in some fancy New York apartment, signing book deals and rubbing elbows with other famous writers. But he was  _ here _ . Close. 

Valerie reached beside her for the box, found the glue strip weak on the flap which sealed its contents from her. It lifted away surprisingly easy. She paused upon opening the dustflaps, her mind utterly blank. She had no expectations of its contents, and the knowledge gave her a certain kind of strength she had not felt in a long time. She opened the box and tipped its contents into her palm, caught a stack of envelopes, identical to those she received before she moved. 

She opened the first and last envelopes in the stack, compared their dates: 2017 and 2019. There was one for each month in between. She realized he must have lost her at some point, beyond his own actions. She tossed the box to the coffee table and it slid across the smooth surface, landed on the floor. Three small blue envelopes fluttered out of the box on its descent. Valerie stacked the checks and set them aside, knelt on the carpet near the box and picked up the three envelopes. 

They were addressed to her family, and she dared only open the one with her name, their Madison address written in Chuck’s neat handwriting. The envelopes were all postmarked back to the Salvation Army and Valerie knew instantly that he must have written the letters when had been homeless. She turned the envelope over in her hands, and ran a finger down, then back up the tacky glue strip and pulled out the contents of the envelope. There was a single white page inside, a perfect tri-fold. When she opened the page, a fat round dandelion fell into her lap. It was still yellow, though the color had dulled with age. She cupped it gently in her palm,  as she read the words written there.

 

> _ August 16th, 2011 _
> 
>  
> 
> _ Dear Valerie, _
> 
> _ After Michael’s death, I wasn’t able to really love anything anymore, including you. There were times when I thought I could get through, like that night we just held each other and prayed for a way past our hurt. I felt love for you then. Now, I would like to tell you what I treasure about you.  _
> 
> _ I treasure your tenacity. You’ve always been so determined to stay true to the woman your mother wanted you to be. I am grateful that you chose to share yourself and your tears with me.  _
> 
> _ I treasure your wanderlust. There has never been a time when you weren’t dreaming of the next road, the next adventure. Thank you for allowing me along for the ride.  _
> 
> _ I treasure your generosity. All the times we spent side-by-side at the soup kitchen and church pantry. Seeing you giving back to the community, those downtrodden folks. _
> 
> _ I appreciate your attention to seeing the good in everyone. You are wise beyond your years, and you always kept me and our boys grounded. _
> 
> _ You have given me so many gifts, Valerie. There is so much that I treasure in my life because of you: our three perfect children Michael, Gabriel, and Castiel. You’ve given me a muse, a reason to write again.  _ __  
>  __  
>  _ I have done so many things to hurt you over these past nine years. I expected you to take care of the boys we have left, and me. To pick up my pieces, when that responsibility lay only with me. I didn’t treat you like a partner, and equal. I ignored you in favor of the kids, and when that became too hard, I left you.  _ __  
>  __  
>  _ I can only imagine the burden you must have felt after I left. All the love and support you lost but had to magnify to cover for my absence. I cost our boys the love and support they deserved, too. I cost myself the joy of being a father.  _ __  
>  __  
>  _ My absence was driven by my fear of my own ineptitude. I was afraid of being a good father when I had failed you all so miserably. I wanted my actions to be what was right for each of you, but I see now how it cost you everything.  _ __  
>  __  
>  _ I am sorry that I left you, Gabriel, and Castiel. You deserved a husband and a father, a partner, and a friend, and I have been none of those things to you.  _ __  
>  __  
>  _ If there are things that I have done to hurt you, that you would like me to acknowledge, I am ready to listen and welcome the opportunity to hear them, to hear from you. I am committed to living my life differently than I have in the past.  _ __  
>  __  
>  _ I treasure you, Valetchka. Thank you for all that you have given me. _ __  
>  __  
>  _ My heart is yours, always. _ _  
>  _ _  
>  _ __ -Chuck

 

Valerie had stained the note with her tears as she read his words, penned by his careful hand, now smudged and welling up into the droplets. The date at the top of the page had set her off instantly: ten years to the day they lost Michael. She had learned through her group therapy sessions, that her Gone Weeks directly corresponded to the anniversary of her son’s untimely death. She felt the weight of it now, running her fingers along the date.  She knew the signs now: withdrawing from commitments, lashing out, needing a stiff drink. 

It wasn’t easy, but her friends were willing to help, Missouri, Bobby, Ellen, and Cheryl. They brought her casseroles and burgers and sat at her table, pulled out from the wall, her desk chair wedged into the remaining space, and they remembered. Bobby remembered Karen and the child they had lost, Ellen remembered her late husband and when the conversation turned bleak, she recalled Jo’s latest misadventures. 

Valerie sat back against the coffee table, shoulders slumped with her left leg bent up, head resting on her knee. She tilted her face against the rough fabric of her jeans and let her tears soak into them. Chuck had left his phone number on the backside of the blue envelope and she stared at it for long moments with swimming eyes. 

When she finally dragged herself up from the floor on stiff legs, she called Missouri. She still held the letter in her hands, reverently, like she held her mother’s Bible each Sunday at Trinity Episcopal Church - all of the church ladies there were the nice ones. They had welcomed Valerie with open arms; the rector had even put her in touch with the therapist she now saw. Valerie often gave thanks to God for her new community, fellowship, friends. As the phone rang through, Valerie reflected on all the good she had in her life, on Chuck’s words, wondered if he might still hold a place on that list. Valerie was pacing the kitchen when Missouri answered.

“Hey, honey. I thought I might hear from you today,” Missouri answered as she always did. “Do you have news to share?” 

Valerie had learned over the years, that Missouri’s talent for ‘knowing things’ was really just a clever ruse, in truth, the woman paid closer attention to her surroundings than most. Once Valerie had learned Missouri’s patterns, it was easy to discern her exact intent. It was no less magical, Missouri’s tact, and it was amusing watching the ladies about town walk out of Missouri’s little home after a reading, with private smiles, as if let in on some cosmic secret. 

In Valerie’s case, she only ever called Missouri when she had something big to tell, something that was easier said in the comfort of her own home, where she had the power to hang up if she needed to. The little things brought Valerie directly to Missouri’s front door. It was how she knew about those ladies coming and going. 

“I do,” Valerie started. Missouri waited patiently for her to continue, always perceptive to the needs of those who sought her counsel. “I got a package today.” 

Valerie relayed the events of the past hour as she paced around the room. Walking kept her voice steady, her breathing even. She did not read the letter, kept that secret for herself, but at the mention of Chuck’s name, Valerie could hear the distinct sound of Missouri sitting heavily on her couch. Valerie stopped her pacing at her writing desk, and ran a finger along its seam, then opened up the center drawer. Under the bouquet wrapping and her stationary and her little black book of friends and estranged family, lay a single white envelope. The return address was for Capitol Lakes. The recipient was Charles Shurley. There was no address written beneath his name.  Valerie cradled her phone between ear and shoulder and lifted the letter from its resting place. 

“Can I let you go, Missouri? There’s something I’ve been meaning to do.”

“Of course, hon. I’ll see you on Sunday for brunch.”

Valerie nodded, then gave a little noise of affirmation and ended the call. She went back to her chair for the box Chuck had sent and brought it with her to the desk. With her new favorite pen, Valerie completed the envelope, peeled a stamp from the book she kept in the drawer and took it directly to the outgoing mailbox. She felt no apprehension as she let it go through the narrow gap, only said a little prayer as it hit the bottom of the tray.

_ God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and Wisdom to know the difference. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do hope you've enjoyed learning about Valerie as much as I have. She's a really special character that Brinchestiel entrusted me with, and it's been an honor helping to write her. Please let me know in the comments if you'd like to read more. 
> 
> Find me on Tumblr [here](http://mrshays.tumblr.com).  
> Find me on Pillowfort [here](https://www.pillowfort.io/mrshays).  
> Find Brinchestiel on Tumblr [here](http://brinchestiel.tumblr.com).  
> 


End file.
